


Let's Hear It For

by likesflowers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Infinity Gems, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-29 19:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likesflowers/pseuds/likesflowers
Summary: Steve Rogers goes alone to collect the Soul Stone from Vormir. Captain America returns alone, Stone in hand.





	1. Chapter 1

When they'd settled on their assignments and Steve had gotten the 5-minute rundown of how to pilot the Milano, Natasha had given him a tight, playful smile and told him to watch out for glaciers. Nebula had broken in, placing a reassuring hand on his arm to inform him that actually, Vormir had enough tectonic activity that what little water there was on the surface was almost exclusively collected in small geothermic pools; while there might be some slight snow on the mountains, of course, it was impossible for there to be enough ice anywhere on the planet to form a glacier.

  
Tony had told her she'd missed the point, but the space geology lesson was still interesting.

  
"Still, Rogers, neither of them are kidding. None of this sacrifice-yourself, take-an-ice-nap business this time around, capisce?" Tony's voice had been serious.

  
"I'd like to think I'll avoid the ice this time--I wouldn't want to be boring." He clasped a hand briefly on Tony's shoulder before heading off to suit up.

  
And then it was time to go.

  
"See you in a minute," Natasha said with as much calm as she'd had right before she launched herself at a moving Chitauri sled--that is, far more calm than the situation warranted. And then she was gone.

  
\---------------

  
Sliding through the Quantum Realm was....strange. He had the oddest sensation of people around him, but he couldn't tell who; it left an afterimage of seeing swirls of color whilst simultaneously feeling totally blind.

  
And then he landed--appeared, really, but his mind said landed, as if he'd jumped from a great height--and Nebula and Rhodes were there alongside him, looking around at the murky light of an alien planet. He quickly pulled out the Milano and resized it the way Scott had shown him. It looked like it worked just fine, but Nebula checked a few things on the console before giving him a short nod.

  
He shook Rhodey's hand. "Not that you'll need it, but...good luck, Rhodey. See you when we get back home."

  
Rhodey nodded back seriously. "Same to you, Steve."

  
Then he turned to Nebula, unsure of whether a handshake would be appropriate or even convey what he meant, despite her being based on Earth for the last five years. She reached her hand out first, though, and he grasped it warmly. "You've got everything you need? No chance of running into yourself?"

  
She paused, brief but enough that he and Rhodes both caught it. "No, that shouldn't be a risk--I'm looking for the Power Stone, but I don't have any idea where it is. Unless she can read my---" she shivered. No, not shivered--seized, just briefly. Her grip on Steve's hand was enough to hurt, but only for a second, and then she was back, like nothing had happened. "--mind, we'll be fine. Go, now. Time is short."

  
Steve didn't let go of her hand. "Nebula? What just happened?"

  
She looked at him oddly. "Nothing happened. Release me."

  
Steve hadn't even brought his hand down when Rhodes spoke. "No, Nebula, something definitely just happened. You...flickered or something."

  
She looked back and forth between them, confusion visible on her face. "I did not 'flicker'. And this is not the time for the human ritual of hazing. I expected better of you two."

  
Steve shook his head. "No, Nebula, I think something's wrong."

  
She shook her head, but it turned into a glitchy movement that repeated almost too fast for the eye to see. She cried out in pain, brought a hand to her head. And then it just stopped.

  
Rhodes was now standing as close as Steve was, hovering one hand over her head but not touching. "Nebula?" he said softly. "This looks like a neural network problem from here. Could something be interfering somehow?"

  
She shook her head once, eyes still closed. "No, my network is completely secure--only I--" she looked up suddenly, eyes wide in horror. "I have to go, now."

  
"What?" Steve asked sharply.

  
She looked at Rhodes, not Steve, when she explained it. "My past self could be accessing my network. And she--" Nebula met Steve's eyes. "she will do ANYTHING to impress her father."

  
Steve felt ice in his stomach. "You're right. You need to go. We've got it from here."

  
Nebula nodded once, gave them both a tight smile. "You'll know Quill when you see him--he's an idiot. Watch out for the swamp rats." Then she lifted her wrist, punched in some coordinates, and disappeared.

  
Steve looked at Rhodes. "So."

  
Rhodes looked back. "Still want to split up?"

  
Steve frowned. "I'll stay here until we secure the Power Stone, then you can take it back and I'll go on to Vormir as planned."

  
Rhodes tightened his mouth. "You know I don't like you going in without backup," he said, but it wasn't an actual objection. Steve wasn't sure what he'd say if it had been.

"At this moment, Vormir is totally empty--that's basically a milk run. We know there are hostiles here, and once we have the Power Stone it'll be safer to take it back immediately. If we cart it all the way out to Vormir we're just inviting someone to follow us and make everything more complicated."

  
Rhodes nodded--he'd done the same math. "Still."

  
Steve gave him a wry smile. "What, you want to flip for it?"

  
Rhodes laughed once. "After I saw you teach Morgan how to cheat a coin toss? Hell no, Rogers. You go on your lonely space quest if you're so determined."

  
Steve laughed, once, then looked over at the Milano. "Should I....shrink it back? Until we get the Stone--isn't Quill going to arrive here in it any second?"

  
Rhodes nodded. He shrunk the Milano again and put it back in his pocket, next to his compass. They settled behind a shrub to wait. It didn't take long--maybe half an hour or forty five minutes when they heard something that sounded like the Milano landing. Moments later, a man in a long coat walked around, his off-key voice picking out a tune only he heard. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings at all, except to grab a swamp iguana and used it as a microphone.

  
Rhodes looked over at Steve. "So...he's an idiot."

  
Steve raised an eyebrow. "And I thought Nebula was exaggerating."

  
The application of the edge of the shield to the back of his head knocked Quill out cold. Steve rustled around a few pockets before he pulled out what looked a great deal like a lock pick set. "Got it!"

  
They walked over to the intricate doors and Steve fiddled with the pick for a few moments.

  
"...Do I want to know where Captain America learned to pick locks?" Rhodes asked.

  
Steve looked over and a smile lit up his face as he remembered a similar conversation years ago. "Nazi Germany."

  
Rhodes shrugged and Steve could practically hear him saying 'fair enough'.

  
Something about that trusting shrug compelled him to clarify a bit more. "I might have picked up the basics in Brooklyn. I watched Bucky do it a few times when he was runnin' errands for his cousin."

  
Rhodes looked very startled to hear that, and Steve could see the wheels turning. "Are you saying--am I hearing you right, that James Barnes was the mob before he was the Winter Soldier?"

  
Steve shook his head. "No, no, that sounds all wrong. Buck was a golden boy. But his cousin was a tightfisted bastard, would never give us a key to the garage, even when he asked us to pick stuff up for him. Bucky was pretty good with that lock on the side door, is all. We made enough for steak dinners one Christmas, just picking up machine parts for Tom."

  
Rhodes looked like he was going to ask another question, but then there was a tiny click and the door started to open. They both looked at it, then Rhodes gently pushed it open enough so they could see inside.

  
They both stared.

  
"Is it just me, or does this look like an Indiana Jones set?" Rhodes asked.

  
Steve responded without looking at him. "Sure does." He unhooked his shield from his back, tossed it towards the back wall. It made a loud clang then rebounded towards his hand. No poisoned darts or spikes appeared.

  
They looked at each other. "You think it's safe to go in?" Steve asked doubtfully.

  
"Hardly," Rhodes replied, "but I don't think we've got much choice."

  
They went in. Nothing happened.

  
They stopped in front of the pedestal, the metal ball hovering.

  
"Is there, like, an off switch?" Rhodes joked.

  
Steve reached up and gently brushed the shield's edge against the purple force field. He'd expected it to do nothing, or slide through it like water, or possibly resist like a stone wall. What he didn't expect was a high pitched wail to begin and vibrations to carry through the shield so strongly he almost dropped it. The surprised reflexive jerk was enough to pull the shield's edge away from the force field and the sound stopped abruptly.

  
"Let's not do that again," Rhodes said into the silence.

  
"Agreed."

  
But they looked around, and they didn't really see anything else, and the clock was ticking.

  
"I could reach in and pull it out with the armor," Rhodes suggested, but it was a doubtful suggestion.

  
Steve sighed. "Let's save that for the last option. I bet with enough momentum the shield could knock it out. It'd be loud, but..."

  
And that's how he ended up sitting on War Machine's back, shield in hand, as they flew over the landscape of an alien planet, picking up as much speed as they could before Rhodes flew as close to the open doorway as he could. Steve led the shield fly as Rhodes banked sharply to bleed of the momentum and land. The high-pitched shriek from before was nothing compared to this sound, short but bone-rattling. It sent a shock wave through the air.

  
Whether it was the lack of concentration or the shock wave briefly cutting War Machine's systems, Steve wasn't sure, but Rhodes and Steve crashed. Luckily, they crashed into a scraggly bush that cushioned their fall. Somewhat.

  
Rhodes pulled up the faceplate but he still had a twig lodged near the suit's temple. Steve reached up and pulled it out, his shoulder aching from where it had hit the ground. They stood up and walked over to the temple.

  
The pedestal was empty, and there were still no spikes. Steve's shield was lodged in the back wall. The sphere was not immediately visible anywhere.

  
Steve went to retrieve the shield while Rhodes turned on some kind of flashlight in the suit. It didn't take them long to see the sphere, tucked into a shadowy corner. Rhodes picked it up, looked at it. Steve put the shield back on his back, looked at Rhodes.

  
"Go," he said.

  
Rhodes looked up at him. "Steve..." he hesitated. "Dammit, we needed more people for this mission and we both knew it! I hate you going alone."

  
Steve tipped one corner of his mouth up. "I'll be fine. Get that thing back to Tony already, before someone comes looking for it."

  
Rhodes nodded reluctantly. "I know, Steve, I know. Just...take care of yourself out there, okay? We need you back in one piece."

  
Steve gripped his shoulder lightly, then let go. "I'll be careful, I promise. Now GO."

  
Rhodes went.

  
\------

  
Steve wasted no time--he wasn't sure of the exact timeline, but he knew someone could easily be looking for Quill and he didn't want them to pick up his Milano instead. So he jogged over to the still unconscious man and tucked his lock-picking tools back into the pouch where he'd found them. He also added the mp3 player Rocket had pressed into his hand before he left. Then he enlarged the Milano, buckled in, and pressed the button Nebula had shown him.

  
The ship took care of the rest.

  
\-------

  
The side of Vormir that he was visiting was, because of the eccentricities of its orbit (or so Tony had said) in a permanent state of dusk. It was eerie. It was also warm, when he stepped off the ship, and humid, with a faint sulfurous, loamy smell. He looked around and saw small ponds everywhere. He dipped a finger in--bathwater warm, and clear enough to see that they were utterly devoid of life.

  
The combination of that rich loamy smell and the total absence of any evidence of life anywhere was even more unsettling than the howling, echoing wind or the ominous, Tolkenian mountain in front of him. Steve had only been to three planets other than Earth (and what a thing to say!) but the other two had been teeming with life in their own ways, verdant fields or rocky jungle. This barren damp desert felt wrong, in a way the other two hadn't.

  
Well, the sooner he got done, the sooner he could leave. He shrunk the Milano and stuck it in his pocket again, then started hiking.

  
It got colder, and windier. The rocks were sharp and jagged, the path narrow and winding but definitely present. After an hour, he started to smell snow; after two, it was clinging to his face and making the rocks slick. He could see his own breath.

  
He didn't think he'd been this high on a snowy mountain since--since the train in the Alps. He wondered if this feeling of dread was because of that, or something else. He set the thought aside and kept walking.

  
Eventually, he reached a plateau. Something was off, the silence too silent. He pulled his shield onto his arm, looked around for whatever it was that had set off his senses.

  
It was the last thing he expected to hear--a slow, mocking laugh from the shadows, a voice he'd heard before. A figure floated into view in the archway.

  
Steve hitched the shield up a little bit higher. Why did he recognize that voice? It's not like he knew THAT many aliens.

  
"Well, well well. Captain Rogers." The voice's crisp enunciation echoed off the rocks. "We were always destined to meet again here, were we not?"

  
The hood was pulled back, and Steve stared.

  
"You may be wondering how I got here. The Tesseract sensed my desire and sent me here, to its sister stone." The smile was grotesque on the Red Skull's face. "But you will soon learn what I have already spent millennia knowing, my dear Captain. One's thirst for power cannot be sated without sacrifice."

  
Steve didn't see any sign that the Red Skull would be attacking--he didn't appear to have any weapons, or any minions, and although he was just as insane as ever, he seemed mostly to want to monologue at Steve.

  
He thought about what Tony would say, strangely enough, and it gave his words an extra kick of irony and sass. "Look, dude, we have already had this conversation. You lost. So either show me where the Soul Stone is, or shut the hell up and get out of my way."

  
Red Skull laughed again. "My sworn duty now is to lead all who seek it to it, Captain Rogers. But I do not think you will like what you find."

  
It went against every instinct Steve had to willingly follow the Red Skull anywhere, but these were strange times, and he felt, somehow, that the Red Skull was telling the truth. There seemed to be something about the barrenness of this place that swept aside all obfuscations, all the lies and half-truths and left only unadorned reality.

  
It was a fitting place to store a Soul Stone, Steve supposed.

  
It only took them about ten minutes to reach the open-air platform. Steve looked around, but there was no pedestal or alcove holding the stone.

  
"What you seek..." the Red Skull paused dramatically, "lies there." He pointed one skeletal finger at the edge.

  
Steve looked at him. "Why..." he didn't engage in conversations with Nazis, as a rule, but Johann Schmidt just handing over an object of infinite power to his sworn enemy was out of character, to say the least, and Steve didn't trust it. "Why didn't you just take it for yourself?"

  
Red Skull curled his face into a mockery of a smile. "The same reason, Captain Rogers, that you will fail to retrieve it. A power such as that demands a sacrifice of that which you love, and yet you are, once again, alone." He laughed, once. It didn't convey humor. "You say that we are nothing alike," he mocked, "and yet we have both been rejected by the stone for failing to bring it a suitable tribute. Like me, you are unlike other men, and that very solitude is your downfall. You have no love to offer in exchange for power. The stone knows your heart and rejects you as unworthy."

  
Steve looked at the Red Skull. That was...actually, it was basically the same garbage he'd been spouting during the war, except with a bitter edge to the gloat. But, like during the war, there was a kernel of truth behind his words--not in the meaning he'd constructed from them, but from the clues itself.

  
So the Soul Stone required a tribute, something a sociopath like the Red Skull could never hope to offer--something genuinely loved, in exchange for power.

  
Steve thought. His hand found its way to his pocket. He had two items he'd brought with him from the ice to the future to this godforsaken place, and one of them was a weapon. The other...well, he had to learn to find his way on his own someday, he supposed.

  
The Red Skull was still talking. Steve shifted the shield so it wouldn't be obvious he was taking something out of his pocket, then walked over to the edge as if to peer over curiously.

  
"...but we must be destined to guard it together, for all eternity--two matched and opposing forces, too powerful for all but the very..." Yeah, Steve thought, still fairly standard villain mumbo-jumbo.

  
He tightened his fist once, then reached it out over the edge and opened it. The compass fell. He heard it shatter at the bottom--a far louder sound than it should have been, echoing off the rocky cliff.

  
Nothing happened.

  
Steve looked down. He could just barely see a glint where the hazy dusk was lighting up one of the fragments of metal. He wondered if Peggy's picture was still intact, or if it had ripped in the fall.

  
"Oh no, dear Captain. You cannot sacrifice that which you have already lost--the Stone cannot be fooled that easily." Red Skull sounded almost, in his mad way, sympathetic.

  
He looked out at the foreign vista. "There has to be a way," he said, mostly to himself. He couldn't fail--he'd give whatever it takes. There had to be a price he could pay.

  
Red Skull's voice was now soft, a twisted sort of friendly. "The cost is, as it has always been, a soul for a soul, Captain Rogers. Is there a soul, infinitely precious to you, that you will nonetheless offer in eternal exchange? A power like this will not be taken lightly. It will accept nothing less."

  
Something about the way he said it made a light go on in Steve's mind. He huffed. It was always going to come to this, wasn't it? Some gifts you didn't get to keep forever. He would give up being Captain America in a heartbeat, though, if it meant they could undo what Thanos had done. It wasn't even a debate.

  
Steve looked up at Red Skull defiantly. "Well, Johann, I'd say it's been a pleasure catching up, but...it's been awful. Let's never do this again."

  
Red Skull sneered. "And just like that, Captain America gives up. Ask for a small sacrifice and you walk away?"

  
Steve stood up straight, his heels inches from the edge. "Captain America doesn't give up. And I've got something worthy to offer the stone--me."

  
He stepped back, and then he was falling while the icy wind whipped around him.


	2. Chapter 2

  
The Captain opened his eyes and found he was lying on his back in a hot thermal pool. His shield was covering one arm. The other was clenched around something warm. He brought it to his face, looked at it. It was a warm amber color that picked up the ambient light enough to glow.

  
He nodded once, turned to his wrist control, and disappeared.

  
\-----------

  
They were all standing on the platform again, and Dr. Banner, who had stayed behind on the controls to troubleshoot, looked anticipatory and worried. The Captain looked around, but everyone appeared to be accounted for. Black Widow was supporting Iron Man, who looked like he'd taken a punch to the head sans armor, and Nebula was rubbing her head like it still hurt.

  
Rhodes looked over at him, smiling slightly. "How was your space quest, Steve?" he asked.

  
The Captain frowned. "Successful," he replied curtly, his hand curling more tightly around the stone. "Let's go," he said.

  
They followed him into the lab. Black Widow tried to engage him in conversation, but he ignored her. "Let's just finish this," he said.

  
She creased her brows. "Steve," she said worriedly, "what happened out there?"

  
He could tell the Widow was not going to leave it alone. He offered enough of a truth to provide an explanation for his demeanor so that she would leave him alone. "Red Skull was there. I completed my objective nonetheless."

  
She looked shocked, and opened her mouth to ask more questions. The Captain had no time or interest in answering her questions, so he cut her off. "Not now," he said.  
She shut her mouth but didn't stop looking at him oddly. He held out his hand. "Give me the Mind Stone."

  
Now she looked genuinely suspicious. Great.

  
"I'll take it to Tony. He said he'd only need a minute before we could put them into the gauntlet." She was too much of a professional to cover the pouch containing the stone with her hand, but her demeanor conveyed the same thing--confusion and distrust, of the Captain.

  
The Captain was honestly quite confused. If he recalled correctly, Black Widow had been one of his most reliable allies. And now she was hesitating to let him hold the very stone he had sent her to retrieve for him?

  
He thought about insisting, but realized it was likely to cause her distrust to skyrocket. He could be patient--they still had a mission to complete, after all. So he just turned and walked toward the lab, trusting her and the rest to follow.

  
They followed.

  
It took Dr. Banner a few minutes to give Stark some kind of painkiller, then another twenty minutes for the painkiller to kick in. While they waited, the others--especially Scott Lang and the raccoon--related their experiences retrieving their stones. The Captain sat and pretended (poorly) to listen. Thor set his hammer on the table, then wandered towards the kitchen while mumbling something about beer.

  
The Captain eyed the hammer. It would come in quite handy later, he imagined--it was, after all, an object of great power. Without really thinking about it, he leaned over and grabbed the handle.

  
"Ha! That didn't work last time, Steve, what makes you think it'll work now?" Rhodes called.

  
The Captain looked over at him and raised his arm.

  
Nothing happened.

  
He frowned, looked at his hand. He distinctly remembered that last time he had had to restrain himself, surprised by how light it had been. But now, it didn't budge an inch--didn't rock, didn't hover; it didn't even feel heavy, because no matter how heavy a thing is, with enough leverage, it will move. If he couldn't feel the sweat-worn edges of the leather wrapped around the handle, he would think it was a hologram.

  
The archer laughed from his perch on the back of the couch. "Seriously, Steve, that is so last decade. Let the joke rest."

  
Thor came back, a beer in each hand. His voice had a hint of his old good humor when he took in the scene "Oh no, Steven. I am still the only worthy heir of Asgard. Or do you challenge me?"

  
The Captain managed not to curl his lip in response. He _should_ challenge this drunkard for authority--would, if the throne of Asgard had any value to it--but at the moment, it wasn't worth the drama. Later, he'd have time to right that wrong and give the Asgardians the government they deserved. Maybe even abolish the monarchy entirely, if he could explain how the citizens should vote in the best way to yield the correct results. But that was a problem for later. He let go of the hammer and smiled his stage smile.   
"No," he said in his bright even voice. "Just killing time."

  
The gauntlet took about an hour to finish, and the Captain's fingers itched to claim it. However, he saw the logic of Dr. Banner's arguments, so he yielded the duty to him. There was a loud click as he snapped, a flash of white lightning. Then Dr. Banner was crying out in pain, most of the others gathering around him to fuss without actually helping. The Captain heard a ringing noise, a cell phone, and looked over to see Hawkeye clutching his phone to his chest and crying.

  
"It worked," he whispered. He held the phone up to his ear, took a deep breath. "Honey, Laura, I love you so much," he said in one breath.

  
The Captain stopped listening--he had no interest in Hawkeye's family life. He looked at the mass of people on the floor and saw that someone--probably Stark--had removed the gauntlet and flung it to the side. It was still smoking.

  
The Captain was still wearing his thin leather gloves, so he leaned over and picked it up. This, at least, felt as heavy as it should, and oddly cold despite the steam.

  
"Cap, don't touch it, it's probably still emitting Gamma rays," Stark snapped at him.

  
"It's fine," the Captain said.

  
"Steve, I'm not kidding around--put that thing down. I'll get one of the bots to move it."

  
The Captain looked over at him, his voice flat and cold. "I'll be fine. It's too precious to just leave on the floor."

  
Stark looked like he was going to retort back, but then all the electronic devices in the room seemed to go off in sync. So Stark waved a hand and told Friday to put him on speaker.

  
Apparently that meant holospeaker, because the room was flooded with ghostly blue figures, most of whom the Captain hadn't seen in half a decade. The King of Wakanda seemed to focus on him. "Captain," he said, "can you explain what is going on? Where is the threat?"

  
The Captain would really rather let Stark or the Widow handle this, but they were both engaged in conversation with people wearing suits, so he supposed he would have to deal with it this time. "Long story short, you've effectively time-jumped five years. Thanos is dead. Stand down, maybe do a headcount. Okoye can fill you in on the details."

  
The King nodded, then raised his wrist where his kimoyo beads sat snugly. "We will discuss this more, Captain, but later, I think." He paused. "Thank you."

  
Then he winked out, only to be replaced a moment later by two figures who were, in an unlikely turn of events, standing next to each other. Not just standing next to each other--the Winter Soldier appeared to be supporting the Falcon, who--once again, the Captain thought--seemed to have damaged a wing as well as himself. Possibly he was mid-crash when he re-materialized from the dust.

  
"Steve!" They both shouted in unison.

  
"Where the hell are you?" Falcon demanded.

  
"Did I actually turn into dust in front of you, or was that my mind playing tricks again?" the Soldier asked.

  
The Captain kept his answers curt, hoping the two would read it as too busy to talk. He didn't want to make small talk with them, but he did recognize them as valuable resources which he didn't want to alienate. "I'm at the Avengers compound. The battle is finished--King T'Challa will give you more information as well as supply your next orders. If he has no need for you, return here as soon as possible."

  
The Falcon nodded and looked around, but the Soldier continued to look at the Captain and frowned a little. "Steve? What's wrong?"

  
"Nothing," he snapped. Perhaps that was too harsh--he deliberately softened his tone. "I'm just very busy at the moment. Go talk to the king."

  
The Soldier stared at him for a long moment, then gave a jaunty two-fingered salute before cutting the connection.

  
The Captain looked around, but everyone else was talking to someone, a hologram or on a phone or both. He looked down at the gauntlet. Now was probably not the best time to start making changes, with his own resources so distracted and distant--better to let it sit for the night. He went over to the common vault and tucked the metal gauntlet inside. Then, he glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then reset the digital pass code before returning to the chaos of the main room.


	3. Chapter 3

That night, everyone was in the great room, talking and hugging and eating some sort of casserole that had been cobbled together from whatever was at the compound. It was like a high school reunion someplace Bucky had never attended--he felt extremely out of place as he watched the scene from the corner.

  
Natasha Romanov was perched on a couch arm next to the Bartons, the youngest boy sitting on her lap as he listened to whatever his father was saying, presumably fairy tales about the last five years. Pepper Potts had a sleeping toddler in her arms as she sat next to Tony, who was listening to the Spiderling talk about his return to Earth via Dr. Strange's portal. Rhodes and the blue girl were mixing drinks that almost no one was actually drinking, except for Thor, the Raccoon, and the man in the long trench coat, who had the thousand yard stare as he moved rapidly from drunk to potentially alcohol poisoned with the air of someone doing so intentionally. The talking tree (what the hell?) was the only one trying to talk him out of it, but apparently trees have a limited vocabulary. Fury was actually smiling as he talked to two women, one dark-haired, the other blonde, and both of them terrifying. Bucky tried not to meet his eyes--he still felt a little bad about the assassination attempt all those years ago.

  
Steve was sitting alone in the corner, un-drunk beer in hand, watching everyone like a hawk. He'd shrugged off Bucky's greeting earlier, made an excuse to slip out and never came back over. He'd done the same to Sam, Bucky knew--he'd seen it. Even that ballsy Carter girl had gotten the brush-off, but Steve wasn't brooding. Bucky knew every expression that dumb kid's face could make, and he'd never seen this one before. It was unsettling, but he couldn't put his finger on why, to see a master strategist so clearly strategizing.

  
Maybe it was because Rogers should have been celebrating. They had saved the day, again, and everybody lived.

  
Well, not quite everybody. Bucky's eyes were drawn back to the drunk at the bar, the hollow look on Wanda's face as she stood next to Sam and stared out the window.

  
Dammit, Steve was well over a hundred years old, he should not need Bucky to kick his ass when it came to being emotionally responsible. But Bucky had been the one with sisters; Stevie had only watched from the outside. Maybe he really didn't know that he should be taking care of Wanda right now, babying her or annoying her or anything really, so that she remembered she wasn't alone. Bucky had made about a thousand cups of cocoa when Lucy's cat had died, he'd pestered Becca until she punched him after she was rejected from medical school; he knew what a big brother was supposed to do here, and Steve was as good as Wanda's, he knew that from a hundred Skype calls when they were on the run and Steve just wouldn't settle.

  
Either way, Steve obviously needed a kick in the pants, and that was another thing Bucky knew how to do. So he walked over, his own lukewarm beer clutched in his hand, still full. Steve tracked his approach, eyes calm, cold, and calculating.

  
It was horrible.

  
"Rogers," he started, "enjoying the party?"

  
His face was as flat as his tone. "It's great."

  
Bucky leaned in a little closer. "You should go talk to Wanda."

  
"Why?" he asked, but it didn't sound like he cared what the answer was.

  
Bucky found himself making the exact same sound he'd made eighty years ago, when Steve insisted on spending his night lying to the government AGAIN rather than going dancing on Bucky's last night before shipping out to Europe. Steve was the most pig-headed person he had ever met in his life.

  
Instead of punching him, like he wanted to, Bucky turned so his back was fully towards Wanda and then hissed furiously at Steve. "That woman is practically your FAMILY, you dumbass, and she just sacrificed the person she loved most in the world to save it. Now she's standing over there alone while you just, what, bask in your own goddamn victory? Do you think she feels like it's a victory, Steve? Giving up someone that precious?"

  
Something about that phrasing captured Steve's attention, because he turned his head and met Bucky's eyes. They were way too close--close enough that he could see curiosity but not compassion in them. A chill went down his spine--it was like someone else was staring out of his best friend's face.

  
"She'll get over it. It's not like I can bring him back."

  
Bucky pulled back. "You could damn well let her know she's not alone."

  
Steve shrugged. "Not my problem. The shock will probably do her good." He looked over at where Thor was sitting, a collection of bottles at his feet and his hammer tucked between his feet. Steve seemed to be ignoring Bucky now too; it was worse than a dismissal.

  
Bucky felt a cold certainty settle into his stomach. He set the beer on the table and walked away.

  
\----

  
"That's not Steve," Bucky said quietly to Sam.

  
Sam shot him a quick look. "What are you talking about?"

  
Bucky wasn't sure how to explain it, but he'd try. "I don't know who that is in Captain America's body, but it's not Steve. He just said--" Bucky darted a glance at Wanda, who was standing next to Sam but staring vacantly out the window. He lowered his voice anyway. "He said the 'shock would do her good'."

  
Sam's lips tightened. He seemed to think for a moment. "You're sure that wasn't more of his Depression-era dark humor that isn't actually funny?"

  
It could have been a flippant question, but Bucky could tell Sam was serious.

  
"It's not. He was being serious."

  
Sam's eyes flicked to Steve, but they flicked away again when he saw they were being watched. Bucky approved of his effort.

  
They were both silent for a long moment. Then Sam sighed, half relief and half terror. "I thought it was just me." He met Bucky's eyes. "When I first met him, he was depressed as hell, you could see it a mile off, but even then he gave a damn about the feelings of random strangers on the sidewalk, probably more than his own. This afternoon...it's like he's hollow."

  
Wanda spoke softly, gaze still unfocused outside the window. "He is."

  
Bucky just managed not to whip his head around and look at her; Sam covered his response by reaching out a hand to hover comfortingly over her shoulder for a moment before dropping it. It was--maybe--enough for the man watching them not to notice anything had happened.

  
"He's not there anymore. It's like all the things that made him Steve are just gone." She continued softly. "The strategy, the craving for power is all still there, but his need to use it to help people? That's gone." She sighed. "He calls himself Captain in his own head, now."

  
Bucky blinked at that. "What?"

  
She didn't turn. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I could hear him anyway, in his mind. He's projecting pretty loudly, even now. He doesn't think of himself as Steve Rogers anymore." 

  
Bucky's face went pale and he only barely managed to stop from flashing back to those first few days after the helicarrier, his fragmented identity refusing to hold any one name for more than a moment. He met Wanda's eyes, then Sam's. Sam was the one who spoke. "We can't talk about this here. Meet in my room in fifteen minutes?"

  
Wanda glanced back out the window again, but when she spoke it was clear she was present mentally, voice soft but iron. "Bucky, get Natasha to come too. No one else."  


Then she raised a hand to her forehead and covered her eyes while red sparks danced rapidly between her fingers. She walked out of the room quickly, hiding her face as if overcome by emotion. Bucky didn't think it was all fake.

  
He looked at Sam, who frowned and shrugged. Bucky was aware that the two of them were being watched by the Captain, so he carefully didn't say anything, just projected a bit of annoyance at Sam then walked over to stand next to Natasha. Clint nodded at him but didn't pause his story.

  
He quickly eased into her personal space, but waited a moment before he put a hand on her back, dipping his head down to whisper in her ear (in Vietnamese, just in case the kid in her lap could hear). "Act like I'm flirting with you, we're being watched."

  
She turned her head to look at him, a small smile on her face, and her posture changed, shoulders back a little, chest out more. She looked up at him from under long eyelashes and let out a breathy laugh.

  
Wow, she was good. He would have bought it completely if he hadn't literally just asked her to do this. He smiled back, then straightened, easing into her space even more until he could feel the heat radiating from her shoulder to his chest. His metal hand was still on her back, and he slid it up and forward until his thumb rested against her neck, hidden from sight by her hair and his body. He used Morse code to tap out the rest of the message. Steve compromised. Meet in Wilson's room in 15 minutes.

  
She picked up her glass from the table--some sort of frozen cocktail in white and pink--and offered it to him for a sip. He did, and as he raised it to his lips his eyes caught on the glass--a check mark had been drawn in the condensation on the side. Clever.

  
He returned it to her, leaning back again to whisper again. "Now I've gotten fresh. Slug me or something."

  
She pulled to the side sharply and he felt her elbow in his gut, just barely missing a rib (he hoped that was intentional). He didn't have to pretend to 'oof'. He held his hands up in a placating gesture. She looked at him with an eyebrow arched, but kept her body language open, like she was still interested, just temporarily annoyed.

  
Damn, she was good at selling this cover story.

  
"Anything from the bar?" he asked vaguely towards the group.

  
"Cherries, please!" the daughter chirped.

  
"No, Lila, you already had a whole jar." Mrs. Barton--Laura--said. She looked over at Bucky. "Nothing for us, thanks." Her voice was cool and firm and polite for all that it said 'fuck off' in as classy a way as possible.

  
Bucky nodded politely to her, then backed off to the bar. As he left, he could hear Laura asking Nat, "What on earth was that, Nat?"

  
"Don't worry about it. He's just slow to take a hint," Nat replied smoothly.

  
Bucky settled next to the Raccoon and asked the blue girl for a beer. He downed it in under five minutes, asked for another, then used some slight of hand to slide it in front of the drunk on his other side, pulling a nearly empty one in front of himself instead. About ten minutes later, he set the empty bottle down loudly then declared he was going for a piss.

  
When he got to Wilson's room, Wanda was the only one there. She was sitting in the desk chair, cradling something in her hands--a delicate porcelain teacup covered in tiny pink flowers.

  
"V--Vision got this for me, you know. He said it reminded him of me." Her voice was sad.

  
Bucky wasn't really all that close to Wanda, but he wanted to give her a hug nonetheless. He settled for a hand on her shoulder, briefly. He looked around the room, and it was Wilson all over: a record player on dresser, a row of records filling up one whole shelf next to it, aged running shoes tossed haphazard against a wall, an old photo of Sam and a few other guys in desert fatigues framed on the nightstand, next to a phone charger still plugged into the wall. The bed was crisply made, with a knitted red-and-brown afghan folded at the foot. There was a long-dead plant sitting shriveled on the windowsill.

  
Bucky guessed they were the first people in this space in over seven years. He wondered how Stark had managed to keep the dust out.

  
The door opened and Bucky's head snapped around, but it was just Wilson, who looked at Bucky and said "Don't touch my stuff," in a way that sounded almost automatic. Bucky pulled his hand back from the dead plant anyway.

  
Wilson was closing the door when Natasha slipped inside quietly. He blinked, like he was surprised to see her here. "Hey, Nat," he said.

  
It was, Bucky suddenly realized, the first time these two had actually talked since the Battle of Wakanda.

  
"Sam," she said quietly, and then they were hugging. It felt like something that should happen in private; Bucky looked away, meeting Wanda's eyes briefly before looking over at the records, as if he cared what lame music Wilson had listened to back before...everything.

  
Natasha cleared her throat, and he looked back. Wilson's arm was still around her shoulders, but they seemed ready to get down to business.

  
"What's wrong with Steve?" she asked.

  
No one answered.

  
Finally, Wanda spoke. "It's not Steve anymore. He calls himself Captain and craves power. His mind felt...cold. Ruthless." She looked at Bucky, apologetic. "Not like when the...Winter Soldier was dominant--you were always there, just hidden. It's like he's gone entirely."

  
"I noticed it too--whoever this is doesn't give a damn about the people he literally went to another planet in another timeline to bring back. I mean, he won't even talk to Barnes," Wilson said.

  
Bucky was oddly touched that Wilson seemed to see that as proof that something was wrong with Steve. "He's not talking to you either, Wilson," he said awkwardly.  


Natasha, it seemed, had focused on a different part of Wilson's statement. "It's not that he doesn't care about you," she said, looking into the distance, "It's that he isn't emotionally involved. He definitely went to some effort to get you here, to the compound, to make sure that you had all your--" she winced. "Dammit, Steve, what the hell--he's treating us, all of us, like weapons. Just materiel in his arsenal."

  
"We are weapons," Wanda said calmly.

  
Natasha met her eyes. "Not like this, not to Steve."

  
Wanda looked away. "For a long time, I hated Stark, you know. Even after I got to know Tony, even respect him, I still hated Stark for what he had done to my family, to my country, in his arrogance. It was so very..." she left the word hanging. Everyone filled it in anyways.

  
Wanda sighed. "I know that...Ultron was, in a way, my fault too. I don't blame him for that, not more than I blame myself. But for a long time, I couldn't see him as anything other than a self-righteous bully who would trample on everyone else like ants if things didn't match his idea of what they should be."

  
Bucky wasn't following how this related, but he could definitely relate to that feeling.

  
Wanda continued. "And now that feeling is a hundred times stronger, but not towards Tony. Captain America has always been a dangerous idea, you know, a propaganda weapon where the only right way is his way."

  
Bucky and Natasha, having had plenty of experience from the Russian side of the equation, nodded in understanding. Wilson did too, and it startled Bucky until he remembered Steve's face on recruitment posters.

  
"Steve was the one who understood that 'my way' and 'the right way' were not synonyms. Even at his most stubborn, he knew which one to bend until they matched. But now..."

  
Natasha broke in. "Other than all of us being freaked out by the way Steve is acting, do we have any evidence that something is actually wrong?"

  
Wilson spoke, glancing towards the ceiling. "Friday, has Captain Rogers done anything weird since his trip back in time?"

  
An Irish woman spoke back. "Can you be more specific by 'weird'? There's been a lot of unusual activities in the last few hours."

  
Bucky was the one who responded. "Anything secretive? That he didn't seem to want others to know about?"

  
"He has checked the inventory of the weapons locker four times from his tablet, asked me to hack into the President's phone conferences, and changed the combination on the vault where the Infinity Stones are being kept."

  
"Shit," three voices said at once.

  
"Indeed," said Friday.

  
Natasha looked at Wilson. "We need to bring Tony in on this, ASAP."

  
"Not unless you can do it without making him suspicious," Bucky said. They looked at him. "Is Tony a good actor? Because whoever that is is still as perceptive as Steve ever was, and if he knows we've figured this out, he'll just blow it all up immediately."

  
Natasha tightened her lips, which was answer enough about whether Stark could act well enough to save their skins. Bucky wasn't surprised.

  
"Fine," she said. "What do you suggest? Confine, interrogate? That'll show our hand. We don't even know what we're dealing with, not really."

  
Wilson, not Bucky, answered. "Can you do some reconnaissance first? Try to figure out what he wants?"

  
She nodded, lips still tight. "I...can. I feel slimy, doing it to Steve, but I can."

  
"He's not Steve," Bucky barked sharper than he meant to. Everyone looked at him. "Just...don't forget that, okay? That's not Steve. Until we find out how to get him back, our job is stop him."

  
Wilson gave a hollow laugh, shook his head. Nat quirked an eyebrow at him instead of verbally asking 'what' but the meaning was clear.

  
Wilson thrust his chin out towards Bucky, meeting his eyes. "When...just before the helicarriers, I told him that about you. That you're not the kind we save, you're the kind we stop."

  
Wilson...wasn't wrong. "You probably should have," Bucky said softly.

  
"Nah," Wilson replied. "Even if you are an asshole, Steve was right."

  
Wanda coughed once. "So. Natasha will try to find out what the Captain actually wants and what happened to Steve. I will work with Friday to see if we can extrapolate anything from his behavior. You two..." She looked at Wilson and Bucky. "If he changed the combination on the vault, that needs to be the first thing we deal with. Can either of you pick a lock?"

  
Bucky frowned. "Is it a mechanical lock?" he asked doubtfully.

  
Wilson gave him a weird look even as Friday said, "The vault is a state-of-the-art Starktech model, which requires a bio-metrics scan that checks both fingerprint and bio-dome markers, in addition to a fifteen-digit numerical code."

  
Bucky shook his head. "I ain't got nothin', then."

  
Wilson heaved a sigh. "I might know a guy."  
  



	4. Chapter 4

  
Getting Scott Lang away from his daughter and his girlfriend was not going to be easy, especially because he didn't seem to have a sneaky bone in his body--an incredibly bizarre trait for a professional thief, reformed or not.

  
They decided to resort to the spilled drink emergency. It was a classic for a reason, alright?

  
And since he wasn't moving from his spot on the couch arm by the window, they were going to have to get creative on bumping into him. Ideally without getting anything on Wasp, who looked like she wouldn't hesitate to knee them both in the groin if they ruined her outfit.

  
Wilson had an idea, and it was terrible, like all of Wilson's ideas, but it would also work, Bucky thought. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.

  
"Why do I have to be the one to pick a fight? I don't do that anymore." He complained. Under his breath, he added, "I was never the one goddamn starting the fights."

  
Wilson gave him an annoyed look. "Because, Mr. Semi-Stable 100 Year Old Man, you have already been, quote, acting weird all night. I mean, hitting on Natasha? Ballsy as hell and twice as stupid, my friend."

  
"I wasn't--"

  
Wilson snorted. "Yeah, whatever dude, you made it look like you were, that's what matters."

  
Now Bucky was starting to feel a little outraged on both his behalf and on hers. "Now look, I don't know what kind of freak show you're used to, but a dame that beautiful gets attention all the time. Not trying would have been weird."

  
Wilson's expression was incredulous. "Did you just call Natasha Romanov a dame?"

  
Bucky sputtered, somehow even more defensive. "I didn't mean anything by it, it's just a habit of speech."

  
Wilson was shaking his head, but he was smiling, too. "Hey Friday," he said, "please tell me you recorded that."

  
"I am always recording, Mr. Wilson. Would you like me to delete the last two minutes from my permanent files?"

  
"Hell no, I'm playing that for Nat. I want to see her face when she kills you with her shoe."

  
Bucky's voice had more panic in it than he'd had in...a long time, as he tried to talk over Wilson. "Yes--Friday, delete it."

  
"Got it, gentlemen. Moved to offsite short-term archives."

  
"No!" They both shouted at once. Friday didn't answer.

  
Wilson shook his head quickly. "We're getting distracted." His voice was more focused and even as he spoke to Bucky again. "I'm telling you, the best plan is for us to play up our natural feelings for each other and take advantage of the fact that you've already established yourself as a little drunk tonight. I accidentally-on-purpose trip you, you shove me back, Lang is covered in wine easy peasy. You know it fits."

  
Bucky sighed. "I know. I just...I worked so damn hard to get people to stop seeing me as nothing but violent."

  
Wilson made an uncharacteristically sympathetic face--uncharacteristic in that the sympathy looked genuine. Bucky was suddenly reminded that this man had counseled vets for years before getting wrapped up in Steve's bullshit, that he probably understood some parts of Bucky better than Bucky wanted him to.

  
"Look man, no one in that room is going to judge you for shoving me after I trip you, okay? They know we get on about as well as oil and water, and they know I can be a real asshole when I try."

  
It didn't make Bucky feel that much better, but he knew Wilson was right, in that it was the best plan, and he was tired of talking about it. "Fine."

  
Wilson telegraphed his movement with cartoonish exaggeration as he reached out and patted Bucky on the shoulder. "It will be." 

  
Wilson went back in first, with Bucky following a few minutes later. He went straight to the bar and got a large cocktail, then started trying to talk to the drunk. He was not particularly responsive, just focused on Bucky's face for a moment before going back to his drink. So Bucky tried to talk to the tree instead. The tree seemed willing to talk but his conversational skills were limited to introducing himself, so Bucky lounged back obnoxiously at the bar and tried to look like he was surveying the room when, in reality, he was only paying attention to three people: the Captain, still perched silently and watching the room; Wilson, laughing as he patted Clint on the back and shook his empty wine glass, a clear excuse to head over to the bar for a refill; and their target, sitting awkwardly about six feet away.

  
Bucky waited until Wilson was next to him at the bar, then turned his head and sneered. "Wine, Wilson, really? Ain't that kinda snooty?"

  
Wilson shot him a glare that was probably not fake. "Dude, you have had way too much to drink. And is that a pineapple I see in your glass? Talk about lame ass drinking choices."

  
Bucky looked at his cocktail, which did in fact contain a pineapple slice. He didn't know what it was, but it was good, and it was good because of the pineapple. Wilson was an idiot, and an asshole besides. "You're an idiot, Wilson." He took a deliberate sip while maintaining eye contact. "And an asshole."

  
Wilson just curled his lip and turned pointedly away. His weight was balanced on one leg, Bucky could see, so he must be ready. Bucky stood up and threw his shoulders back, eyes on the Bartons and Natasha. He started to walk that way, but he didn't make it a step before Wilson's foot was in front of his. He made the stumble more obvious, carefully shook his hand so the cocktail spilled on the floor and his hand, then whirled around.

  
"What the fuck, Wilson?" he snarled loudly.

  
Wilson just looked at him. "Whoops," he said flatly.

  
Bucky knew it was just an act, but he felt his blood boiling a bit nonetheless. He felt his face slip into the flat expression of the Winter Soldier just for a moment, and he intentionally let his anger--Bucky's anger--bleed through, at everything from Hydra to Thanos to Steve himself, and he grabbed Wilson's shirt, pulling him forward and off balance.

  
"You want to start some shit?"

  
Wilson's voice was furious. "Get your goddamn hands off me, you lunatic."

  
Bucky did, shoving him backward. Wilson flailed, tried and failed to get his footing, and went back another step before landing on his back. Everyone turned to look. Bucky gave the room a nasty look, said, "What?" harshly, before storming out of the room.

\------

  
  
He was waiting in the office for only a few moments before Wilson and Lang came in, Lang's white shirt coated in wine. Wilson was rubbing the back of his head absently.

  
"Shit," Bucky said softly, hand started to reach up. "Did I--I didn't think you actually got hurt."

  
Wilson gave him an indecipherable look before dropping his hand irritably. "I'm fine," he snapped, but there was something else to his tone. He caught Bucky's eye. "Really," he said softly.

  
Bucky dropped it.

  
Lang just looked confused. "Aren't you guys, like, fighting right now? I do not want to referee a duel between the Winter Soldier and the Falcon. This is SO above my pay grade." He paused for a second. "Hey, do Avengers get paid?"

  
Wilson ignored the question. "We need you to help us open the vault."

  
Lang's brow furrowed. "So...we don't get paid, and you guys are robbing your billionaire friend. This seems like a bad idea. I'm pretty sure Stark will just like, give you whatever you want."

  
"We're not robbing him!" Wilson exclaimed.

  
"It's not like that," Bucky protested.

  
Lang looked back and forth between them for a moment, his face skeptical. "So...if I asked Tony about this, he'd be all like, 'Yeah! Break into my vault, have fun'?"

  
Bucky jumped in before Wilson could make an even bigger mess. "Do NOT tell Stark about this."

  
Lang opened his mouth. Bucky cut him off.

  
"The vault has been...compromised. The pass code was changed. We just need to break in and change the pass code again."

  
Lang raised an eyebrow. "How could it have been compromised? I mean, there's no one here but us...You don't think..." his eyes widened.

  
"Don't worry about the who--Wilson and I are taking care of that. I just need to make sure this person doesn't have access to that vault until we get everything sorted out."

  
Wilson butted in. "Look, if it makes you feel better, you can choose the new pass code. Just don't tell it to anyone. And I mean ANYONE."

  
Lang paused, thinking. "What about Hope?"

  
"Did I say 'anyone except Hope'?"

  
Bucky hadn't known that Wilson had a vein in his forehead that twitched. Apparently he did. He found it--shockingly--endearing.

  
Lang closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, his face was resolute. "Fine, I'll do it. But I am not telling you the pass code either, and I am not doing anything else for you two until you tell me what's going on."

  
Wilson clapped him on the shoulder companionably. Lang visibly winced. Bucky just rolled his eyes and opened the inner door. "Come on. Time's a-wastin'."

  
\---------------

  
Lang was punching in the last of the new pass code when Bucky felt a presence in the room. He stiffened, then turned.

  
Standing right behind him--inside his personal space bubble--was the blonde woman with short hair who had been talking with Fury earlier, arms crossed and a deceptively harmless look on her face.

  
"Hi," she said.

  
"Holy shit!" Lang said, jerking. He had clearly had no idea she was there.

  
Wilson, god bless him, just stepped forward and leaned his body weight against the vault door until it clicked shut. He didn't say anything.

  
Bucky wanted to reach for his gun, but he managed to turn the gesture into him folding his arms to mirror her posture. "Can we help you with something?" he asked pointedly.  
She raised her eyebrow. "You tell me."

  
There was a rustle of movement from the doorway, and then two figures appeared. Bucky flicked his gaze over the woman's shoulder and saw that it was Fury and the dark-haired woman.

  
"Fuck," Wilson said.

  
Fury stopped about three feet behind the blonde woman's right shoulder. "Which one of you three idiots," he said evenly, "is going to tell me what the hell is going on here?"

  
Honestly, Bucky's first instinct was to run. He didn't get the chance, though, because Wilson stepped forward like someone had put him in charge. "Not here," he said calmly, glancing around. "Follow me."

  
\--------

  
Wanda's room looked like a college dorm room; it didn't really have space for as many people as were currently in it, let alone seating. Wanda was at the desk, a notepad in front of her covered in scribbles in--Bucky glanced over--Sokovian, presumably from the research she had been doing with Friday. Lang sat briefly on the foot of the bed, but when no one else sat down, he jumped up to hover awkwardly at Bucky's left shoulder. His right was tucked just behind Wilson, close enough to feel the heat coming off him. Fury and the women stood by the door. The only one not here was Natasha; Bucky felt okay with that. He hadn't liked the grief he'd seen in her eyes earlier, didn't want to bring more to her, and he had a feeling in his gut that was where this was going to end.

  
"So," Fury said, looking at Wilson.

  
It wasn't Wilson who answered, however; it was Wanda. "Retrieving the Soul Stone did some sort of damage to Steve's own soul. He isn't Steve anymore."

  
Fury just blinked for a minute. "What do you mean, isn't Steve anymore? He's not acting like he has amnesia."

  
Wanda huffed, moved her hands softly as if she could someone demonstrate what she meant. "I mean, the person sitting in that room is only Captain America. Steve is gone."

She glanced at Bucky, as if for permission, and he nodded slightly, just once. "Not like the Winter Soldier--Bucky was there, the whole time. Steve has been taken out. I can feel the rough edges where he was removed. The man he was is gone." She paused, dramatically. "That...that thing out there, it's nothing but the suit."

  
Lang opened his mouth to ask a question, but then closed it again. No one else even tried to speak.

  
Fury, unsurprisingly, broke the silence. "You're certain?"

  
Wanda nodded.

  
Fury sighed, eyes fixed like he's looking at a memory. "Then that's a goddamn dangerous suit we've got out there. Any idea what he--it--he wants?"

  
Now it was Wanda's turn to go a little unfocused as her attention turned inward. "Power," she said slowly. "Righteousness. The...he wants to remake the world into his idea of right." She shook her head. "It's just like Thanos. So certain he's right and everyone else is wrong."

  
"He wants the Infinity Stones?" the dark-haired woman asked perceptively.

  
Wanda nodded. "I caught a stray thought about Thor's Hammer, too, but I don't think he can lift it. Anything that'll give him power, though. Weapons."

  
Bucky felt his mouth twist. "He thinks he has us--that we're more weapons in his arsenal." He didn't mean to say it.

  
The blonde woman met his eyes, and there was something knowing in them. He thought she might have been nothing but a weapon to someone she trusted once, too. "He doesn't, though. Does he?"

  
Wilson, who hadn't said anything this whole time, responded without a pun or a joke or anything, just a single word. "Nope."

  
Bucky was struck sharply by a memory so strongly he half-expected to see whisps of red in the air around his face. He couldn't help the words that came out of his mouth. "You know, after Azzano, when he was first putting the team together, he asked me if I was ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death. I told him hell no." Everyone was looking at him.

  
"And," Wanda prompted gently, like she knew the rest but wanted him to say it anyway.

  
Bucky gritted his teeth. "I told him I was following that skinny little punk from Brooklyn. It was never..." he huffed out a single bitter laugh. "I always hated Captain America, hated watching Steve try to balance his own self and the goddamn uniform and lose most of the time. I was always afraid one day I'd look over and there'd be nothing left of that guy from Brooklyn that I grew up with. Guess I wasn't wrong."

  
Wilson shifted his shoulder so it was actually touching Bucky's. He took it for what it was, a silent show of support, and didn't shove him or step away like Wilson probably expected. He leaned into it, briefly, then coughed.

  
"Anyway," he said roughly, "we need a plan."

  
Fury looked grim, but determined. "Guess it's a good thing I have contingencies, then."


	5. Chapter 5

  
Bucky should have been surprised that Natasha was the only one willing to execute Fury's contingency plan, but then again, maybe he shouldn't have been. She'd shown up five minutes after the dark-haired woman--Hill--sent her a text. Fury hadn't asked about the intel she'd gathered, just explained his plan. She'd just nodded once and held out her hand for the vial, then spun on her heel and walked out of the room again. Fury, Hill, and Carol followed her, to go prepare the containment cell.

  
That just left Bucky, Wilson, Lang, and Wanda.

  
"So...should we, like, go help Black Widow or something?" Lang asked awkwardly.

  
Wilson, again, seemed to take charge. "No, Natasha's got this. We'll wait here and run interference if necessary. Friday, can you show us the video feed from the party?"

  
"Certainly, Mr. Wilson," Friday said cheerfully as Wanda's television turned itself on to display an extremely high-quality video of the party. By now, Barton's family was standing and looking like they were ready to leave--the little boy was asleep in Clint's arms, and the girl was yawning repeatedly. Pepper and the toddler were nowhere to be seen--presumably they had already left. The drunk appeared to be passed out, and the raccoon was talking to the Captain and ignoring the cold shoulder he was getting in response.

  


Natasha entered from a side door and walked directly toward the Captain with an unhurried but purposeful gait. She barely paused as she jabbed the needle into his neck, then dodged smoothly when the Captain swung around with a snarl. He managed to get halfway out of the chair, but his second punch swung wide and he collapsed awkwardly over the chair arm.

The whole thing took less than ten seconds.

  
"The fuck, Romanov?" Tony said over the utter silence of the room.

  
She pursed her lips. "Long story short, he's compromised. I'll fill in the blanks once we get him to containment."

  
Tony made a face. "You want to put Captain America in containment? Where the hell do you intend to hold him?"

  
Natasha draped one of the Captain's arms over her shoulders as she answered Tony. "Bruce's room." She shifted the unconscious body a bit. Everyone else just kept staring. "A little help here, guys? The tranq is going to wear off in like ten minutes."

  
Barton was the first one to move, handing the sleeping toddler off to Thor and grasping the Captain's other arm. "Nat, this had better be a damn good explanation."

  
Barton's reaction seemed to spur the others into action: Tony set down his glass and he and Rhodes each took one of the Captain's feet. Lang's girlfriend Hope sprung up and held open the door. The tree and the raccoon looked at each other, then followed the whole group out of the room.

  
Bucky looked away from the screen and at Wilson. "This is such a terrible idea. He's going to wake up half-way there and fight them all."

  
Wilson's jaw tightened. "Which is why we're here; we can cut him off if he does."

  
Lang laughed nervously. "Wait. We're the backup plan for if an enraged soulless Captain America wins a fight against four other Avengers? We are so dead."

  
Wanda ignored all of them, just pressed a button on her phone so the video shifted to the hallway. They watched as the group moved down the hallway, Tony complaining about the weight as they went. Bucky could hear them move past the room.

  
Despite their misgivings, Captain America did not wake up half-way through the trip and try to slaughter all his teammates. As soon as they made it into Bruce's reinforced room, Wanda stood up from the desk.

  
"Come on," she said decisively. "We need to go explain things to the others before he wakes up."

  
This time, Wanda led the way down the hall. They arrived just as Rhodes was pulling the door to the confinement room shut behind him. He directed his question not to Fury, but to Wilson. "Okay, he's locked up. Will you explain what the hell is going on here, Wilson?"

  
Wilson nodded at Wanda, who recapped what they knew already. Everyone was listening intently except Natasha, who was fiddling with the view screen at the desk. While she was talking, the blue girl, the spiderchild, and Valkyrie walked in, taking up positions near the exit.

  
"Did you notice anything off with Cap, Rhodey?" Tony asked.

  
Rhodes shook his head. "No, he was acting exactly like himself. I told him I didn't want him going alone to Vormir, but it's not like we had a choice. Something must have happened there."

  
The tree said quietly, "I am Groot."

  
The raccoon whipped around and looked at him. "Vormir is famous for WHAT?"

  
Everyone's head turned.

  
The tree repeated himself. "I am Groot."

  
The raccoon started swearing. "Are you kidding me? No one knows that. There is no way we would have sent him there alone if that was the case. Where did you hear that?"

  


Natasha, who seemed familiar with the raccoon's communication style, cut in. "Rocket, what did he say about Vormir?"

  
The raccoon--Rocket, apparently--looked at Natasha. "He says that Vormir is famous for being cursed. Because there's a treasure there that's guarded by a soul-eater, and only half of those who arrive ever leave."

  
"I am Groot."

  
"No, no one cares that you read the poem at an assembly in your school, Groot, not right now. Are you telling me that some red-faced skeleton ate Captain America's soul?"

  
Bucky froze.

  
Wanda asked a question directly to the tree. "So others have managed to leave, successfully? What do the stories say about their successes?"

  
"I am Groot."

  
"He says they always take a vow never to speak of their trials. Just that they always come back powerful, bitter, and alone."

  
Bucky knew he needed to say something. He had to. He just couldn't seem to open his mouth.

  
He did it anyway. "This...this red skeleton. Like...like a red skull?" He asked quietly.

  
The tree looked at him. "I am Groot."

  
Fury's face said he didn't need that translated. "So you are telling me that Steve Rogers went to some alien planet, alone, and got his soul eaten by his old Hydra arch-nemesis Red Skull?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

  
"Whatever you think you know, you're wrong, Romanov. And when I get out of here, you are going to regret having done that." The voice that came through the speakers was flat and eerie in its familiar unfamiliarity. That wasn't Steve's burning rage; it was ice-cold hate, and it sent a shiver down Bucky's spine. He could see a few others react the same way--Wilson, Wanda, even the blue girl.

  
It seemed like the Captain was done playing at being Steve, at least.

  
Tony wrinkled his nose. "Is it just me, or does that sound...nothing at all like Cap?" he asked.

  
Barton was the one who said what everyone was thinking. "It's not just you."

  
Rhodes leaned heavily against the wall. "Well, fuck. What do we do now?"


End file.
